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WASHINGTONPresident Joe Bidens infrastructure and jobs proposal would invest an historic $174 billion in electric vehicles, through consumer tax credits and direct spending on charging stations, mass transit vehicles and school buses.

But heavy Republican pushback against the vast scale of Bidens support for EVs could signal trouble for the presidents hope to rapidly electrify the nations transportation system. And some analysts are fearful that electric vehicles could become wrapped up in the culture wars, as Covid-19 vaccines have.

With leading car makers like General Motors setting dates for producing only electric vehicles, some GOP leaders say they understand that a movement toward electric vehicles is inevitable.

All the major car manufacturers have said that theyre going to go to an electric vehicle fleet by 2035, 2040, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) said at a Senate Budget Hearing in early April. To my Republican colleagues, its just a matter of time until most cars will be running on something other than gasoline.

South Carolina is home to some electric vehicle factories, and Biden virtually visited a Proterra electric battery facility in South Carolina last week.

Grahams colleague, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) is a co-sponsor of a bill introduced in March that would provide incentives for private investments in electric and hydrogen vehicle refueling stations.

The sticking point has become what the senators and many other Republicans see as Bidens determination to get as many EVs on the road as quickly as possible. Almost every congressional Republican has voiced opposition to Bidens proposal, characterizing his infrastructure bill and its dramatic investment in EVs as part of a leftist agenda unrelated to traditional infrastructure.

The total amount of funding it would direct to roads, bridges, ports, waterways and airports combined adds up to less than what it would spend just on electric cars, said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a press release last week. The far left sees a strong family resemblance between these proposals and their socialist Green New Deal.

On Thursday, Senate Republicans unveiled a less pricey counter offer to Bidens $2.2 trillion proposal that focused on traditional infrastructure, but it was rejected by Senate Democrats before it was introduced. Negotiations between Senate Democrats and Republicans on the infrastructure bill are continuing.

As if to stoke Republican fears, two progressive Democrats, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, last week revived their push for the Green New Deal, a broad plan to dramatically reduce U.S. reliance on and production of fossil fuels, while promoting clean energy jobs.

Bidens investment in the EV market in the United States would go toward building 500,000 charging stations by 2030, giving tax incentives to consumers who buy EVs and replacing 50,000 diesel transit vehicles, while electrifying at least 20 percent of the nations public school bus fleet.

The U.S. has a choice of whether were going to lead in these sectors or if were going to follow, Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk said last week at a virtual meeting sponsored by ZETA, an advocacy group for electric vehicles.

Meanwhile, a fundamental change is already happening in the automobile industry.

In January, General Motors set 2035 as a target for producing only EVs and 2040 to achieve complete carbon neutrality across all of its facilities. Volvo plans to cut out internal combustion engines even sooner, going all electric by 2030.

ZETA Executive Director Joe Britton said that the companies announcements reflect the irreversibility of electrification in the transportation sector, and pointed out the huge economic opportunity in developing domestic manufacturing of electric vehicles and batteries.

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The success of Bidens climate agenda, with a recently announced goal to cut nationwide carbon emissions by 50 to 52 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, will depend largely on how quickly he can convince American automakers and consumers to go electric. Only about 2 percent of vehicles sold in the United States last year were EVs. A number of recent studies, including by the National Academies of Science, concluded that half of all new vehicles sold should be electric to meet the greenhouse gas reduction goal Biden adopted.

Before Americans embrace of EVs is clear, though, Biden success in getting his $2.2 trillion infrastructure plan through the Senate will depend on whether he can convince Republicans to support the legislation, or whether he decides to push it through using a budget reconciliation process that requires support only from Democrats, who control the chamber 51-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting tie-breaking votes.

But that could create even greater partisan backlash and push EVs into the polarized rift between liberals and conservatives.

If current Republican talking points associating EVs with the Green New Deal stick, you could start to see the kind of almost culture wars around electric vehicles that we see on vaccines and that we see on voting rights and abortion, said David Victor, a professor of innovation and public policy at the University of California, San Diego. Peoples attitudes [on EVs] could end up being determined first and foremost by their party affiliation.

Biden could also lose the support of some centrist Democrats like West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who expressed hesitation last week at the idea of pushing Bidens original infrastructure proposal through Congress without any Republican support.

Victor said that an EV policy that would have the potential to win Republican support would focus on private sector incentives for EVs and EV infrastructure, like the bill Burr was a co-sponsor of in March, which many Democrats and the EV industry see as a bare minimum.

Among the public, EVs are still a relatively nonpartisan topic. According to a 2019 Climate Nexus national poll, 70 percent of Republicans and 84 percent of Democrats have a somewhat or very positive opinion of electric vehicles.

It would be, again, ridiculous and unfortunate if this became partisan, said Cathy Zoi, CEO of EVgo, the largest fast charging network for electric vehicles in the United States, during a virtual panel conducted by ZETA. We should all be able to come together and put the force of our shoulders behind this infrastructure investment.

Nico Portuondo is a graduate student at Northwestern Universitys Medill School of Journalism, where he specializes in politics, policy and foreign affairs. He recently completed a media internship at the Union of Concerned Scientists and now covers environmental policy at Medills Washington bureau. Nico graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Duke University, where he majored in environmental science and policy.

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Bidens Bet on Electric Vehicles Is Drawing Opposition from Republicans Who Fear Liberal Overreach - InsideClimate News

Image: Courtesy of HBO Max

Bethenny Frankel wants everyone to know shes real, and in a new Vanity Fair profile, she says it repeatedly. How about we do real? The sentiment, she says, defined her upcoming HBO Max Apprentice-esque business competion, The Big Shot With Bethenny. Youll see its extremely real. It couldnt be more real.

Get the memo? This lady is very real.

Its a whole lot of Bethenny Frankel in VFs gargantuan interview with the mogul, appropriately titled, Bethenny Frankel Would Rather Be Canceled Than Muzzled. The headline gives most of what happens next away. Heres the full quote:

Listen, Id rather be canceled than muzzled. There are so many watered-down, filtered versions of people running around the entertainment industry. Its the absolute majority. I am absolutely the exception, no question. But when you do something that is risky, or that you might regret, or that risks cancellation nation, you think about what it takes to survive, and what it takes to thrive, and where the envelope is, and if you can push it.

She adds that her decision to do a podcast was a risky thing for a person like me, because Im just going to say what I think. So I made a conscious, calculated decisionsomething could go sideways, for sure. Apparently, the play worked, because now she has a new show on HBO Max, The Big Shot With Bethenny, in which she will find someone to run this goddamn circus, or in non-reality television star speak, her business empire.

Funny, though, because I cant imagine what is riskier about a podcast than multiple stints on The Real Housewives of New York, during which she screamed, screamed some more, tore her friendships apart, and sold a lot of tequila.

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Bethenny also speaks bluntly about the businesspeople she admires. To her, the biggest thing is that they have to have built a brand and done it in a nontraditional way. Heres the hellish list, which caused me to break out in hives and call my therapist crying. Jamie Siminoff, who created the Ring and sold it to Amazon for a billion dollars. Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Handler, [Barstool Sports creator] Dave Portnoy, Mark Cuban, Ryan Murphy. Apparently, these goons and goblins will also guest-star on The Big Shot, which seems bad, but most likely very good for ol Beth.

Speaking of the union-busting, misogynistic, hate-filled pig monster known as Dave Portnoy, Bethenny seems to admire him quite a bit. Heres the rest of what she has to say about that demon king from the darkest blood pits of hell:

If its not full shtick, I think Dave Portnoy is doing things his own way and pissing off people. Hes not really afraid. Its part of his brand to piss off people. The difference between Dave Portnoy and me, besides everything, ishe has a brand, but he [isnt partnered with a] wholesome company brand like Conagra. So I cant go totally rogue and do everything that I want to do. But Ive made people mad.

The full quotes gets even weirder:

Ive had all the Karens mad at me for helping 100 small-owned Black businesses. To them I was a racist. Ive had the same group pissed off because I said something about Donald Trump. But then I had another group pissed off at me for posting a Hillary Clinton photo. I had Dana White and I had Hillary Clinton on the podcast. Its not about politics. Its about opinions and your own route to success.

The more I think about a collaborative environment in which Dana White, Hilary Clinton, Bethenny Frankel, a bunch of Karens, and Dave Portnoy all mill about together freely, the more the sun darkens and the sky fills with locusts and the rivers run green and black with acid and all manners of disease. I think thats enough quotes from ol Beth for now. I need to crawl back into bed and never read the internet ever again.

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Bethenny Frankel Has Taken Up Her Sword in the Cancel Culture Wars - Jezebel

The GOP, an increasingly extremist party whose members still cant all admit that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, has a message for Joe Biden: Stop being so radical and divisive. That was the gist of Senator Tim Scotts rebuttal to the presidents first address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night. Painting Bidens calls for unity as empty platitudes, the South Carolina Republican accused Democrats of dividing Americans in pursuit of a far-left agenda, and of abandoning GOP lawmakers who sincerely want to come together to advance common-sense legislation. We need policies and progress that bring us closer together, Scott said. But three months in, the actions of the president and his party are pulling us further and further apart.

As a thesis, it was fundamentally dishonest. But it was also telling: Lacking a serious and coherent agenda of their own, and under the spell of a wannabe-strongman, Republicans response to Biden is to misrepresent him as they open up new fronts in the culture wars. Sure, at times on Wednesday night Biden seemed moments away from breaking into Wont You Be My Neighbor?but, Republicans want Americans to believe, thats just a front for a fringe agenda that has, in the words of Scott, helped push the nation off its shared foundation. Or, as Ted Cruz summed up Bidens address: Boring, but radical.

Theyre not wrong that the ambition of the agenda the administration has pushed in its first 100 days can sometimes be overlooked because its point man is, well, Joe Biden; it can be hard to wrap your head around the fact that the guy bullshitting about golf with John Boehner is putting forth one of the most unabashedly progressive platforms in recent history. But his project isnt to make crazy ideas seem normal, as Republicans contend; its to make the case for what should be normal. Polls suggest hes doing just that: a CNN survey after his address Wednesday found that nearly three-quarters of viewers believed the policies Biden proposed would move the country in the right direction; a CBS News poll came in with similar results, with 85% of respondents saying they approved of the speech and as many or more describing what they saw as inspiring, caring, and presidential. The country may be bitterly polarized, but a majority approve of Biden and his policiesespecially compared with his predecessor.

So where does that leave Republicans, who are still at the mercy of the former guy? Apparently, hoping that Americans scare easily and have a short memory. Scott opened his rebuttal by dinging Biden for failing to lower the temperaturewithout mentioning who it was, exactly, that raised it (maybe the president who sicced armed supporters on the Capitol in response to his election loss?). Next, he suggested that Bidenwho assumed office at the worst point of the COVID crisis, with a sputtering vaccine rolloutis wrongly taking credit for the improved pandemic outlook in the U.S., arguing that the progress hes attributing to his own administration actually began under Trump. Too often, Scott said without a hint of irony, powerful grown-ups set science aside. Finally, Scott took aim at several partisan items on the Biden agenda, all without saying anything substantive about what made them so radical or what solution Republicans would prefer. The premise throughout: that Democrats are seeking to foist their agenda on the country by dividing it.

That point was made most directly in the most eyebrow-raising line of the response, which came as Scottthe only Black Republican in the Senaterebuked Bidens call to address systemic racism. America is not a racist country, he said, defending the laws the GOP has enacted or proposed in a barely-veiled effort to curtail voting rights. Its backwards to fight discrimination with different types of discrimination. And its wrong to try to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present. It was the most contentious line of Scotts speech, though Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday said she agreed that she doesnt believe America is a racist country. These are issues that we must confront, Harris added. It does not help to heal our country, to unify us as a people, to ignore the realities of that. Scott, whose lived experience gives him credibility on the subject that his Republican colleagues lack, wasnt necessarily saying racism doesnt existjust that it isnt baked into the system, and that to suggest it is is its own kind of discrimination. Kids again are being taught that the color of their skin defines them, Scott said, riffing on the old reverse racism trope, and if they look a certain way, theyre an oppressor.

Scott is certainly entitled to his views on the matter. But the implication that recognizing a problem is divisive and working to solve it is radical is absurd. The GOPs approach to this and other issues may satisfy the culture warriors among them, for whom the very suggestion that something in this country needs fixing is an egregious attack. But for most Americans facing these issues, who have watched for four years as Trump and his party either ignored or exacerbated them, perhaps the idea of Biden investing billions in child care costs wont be seen as a Trojan horse for a radical socialist takeover, but as something that will tangibly improve their lives.

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Republicans Unironically Claim Joe Bidens Agenda Is Tearing the Country Apart - Vanity Fair

President Joe Biden addressed socially-distanced, mask-wearing members of Congress for more than an hour Wednesday night, touching on themes of jobs for the middle and lower class, and keeping any post-pandemic recovery going.

It was an effective speech, said G. Terry Madonna, senior fellow for political affairs, Millersville University, even if you dont agree with what he said.

The point to be made about the speech, Madonna contended, is that he went to his strengths when he started out, and then he talked about how to expand the economy, how to make it work. and it has to be from the middle out.

That was a big theme of the speech, Madonna noted, and was how he defended these changes that he wants to make in the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan and in the $2.3 trillion jobs and infrastructure plan that has passed the House and probably isnt going anywhere in the Senate.

He would need 10 Republican votes.

Nick Clark, associate professor of political science, Susquehanna University agreed with Madonna.

Biden clearly focused on economic, bread-and-butter issues far more than cultural issues, Clark said. He has really laid in to achievements, policies and proposals designed to improve the financial and physical health of Americans.

There have been some bipartisan nods, Clark noted, with the president acknowledging a kind act from Senator Mitch McConnell a couple years ago and the efforts of the group of Republican senators to introduce a Republican version of the infrastructure bill.

Biden also signaled more of a willingness to compromise around this than he did with the earlier stimulus bill.

Time will tell if that happens, Clark said.

Biden mostly avoided discussing any of the controversial culture wars issues, other than his calls for more gun regulations and immigration reform toward the end of his speech, observed Robert Speel, Penn State University Associate Professor of Political Science, The Behrend College.

His emphasis on creating American jobs, expanding access to preschool and college education, expanding access to health care, increasing the minimum wage, and increasing taxes on millionaires will all probably be relatively popular among Republican voters, if not Republican members of Congress, Speel said.

But, cautioned Speel, continued antagonism among many Republican voters toward Biden overall, promoted by former President Trump and some in the conservative media, will only strengthen resolve among those Republican members of Congress to resist support for Bidens proposals.

Speel thought Bidens delivery was about as good as any speech he has given before.

His interest in lowering the amount of hatred in Washington and in advocating for ideas that can gain support from voters for both major parties will probably continue to help his overall approval ratings in polls, Speel said.

Clark didnt think the speech would provoke as much hate on the other side of the aisle as either President Trump or President Barack Obama used to.

Biden is just so more low-key, Clark said. Republicans will oppose most of his proposals, and there are some truly progressive and costly ideas amongst those, but I think it will not inspire the same passions on either side. His supporters will argue it is because he is calmer and more moderate; his opponents will say it is because he lacks energy or youth, but either way, it appears that the bitterness of politics has deescalated under his leadership thus far.

Meanwhile, Speel noted the importance that for the first time in U.S. history, two women (Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi) sat behind the president as he gave a speech to Congress.

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Expert: Biden's speech started with strengths, shifted to plans - Sunbury Daily Item

Joe Bidens election prompted spasms of joy in education circles. Before he was sworn in, a story in Inside Higher Education gushed over his transformative victory, cheered that he believes in research, and judged that community colleges are likely ecstatic. The Washington Posts Valerie Strauss promised that Biden would fix the inequity that has long existed in the education system. Ken Wong, Brookings scholar and Brown Universitys Annenberg chair in education policy, proclaimed that Bidens education agenda represented a return to responsible governance.

Now, 100 days into Bidens term, his education agenda is taking shapeand its anything but a model of responsible governance. His administration has exacerbated educational culture wars despite his promises to be a uniter. Hes done little to persuade recalcitrant teacher unions to lead on school reopening (other than perhaps threaten to smother them with bales of cash). And hes pushed for stupefying levels of new school spending with no obvious interest in whether the funds are spent wisely or well.

When it comes to education, President Bidens first 100 days have been nothing to write home about. Lets take a closer look at the four subjects that have absorbed the lions share of the administrations energy and that constitute his 100-day report card.

School reopening:A majority of school districts remain at least partly closed over a year into the pandemic, despite the widespread availability of vaccines, the vast majority of educators having been fully vaccinated for well over a month, data making clear that schools are not a significant source of COVID spread, and the copious evidence demonstrating that children learn better and have better mental and emotional health when theyre in school.

Despite all of this, Bidens push to reopen schools has been half-hearted and lacking in urgency. In principle, Biden has extolled the benefits of in-person schooling and urged schools to bring students back. Indeed, back in December, before taking office, Biden pledgedthat my team will work to see that the majority of our schools can be open by the end of my first 100 days.

In practice, Biden balked at setting clear expectations for reopening or using his relationship with teacher unions to accelerate things. On his first day in office, Bidenwalked backhis reopening goal by announcing that it no longer included high schools. That same day, first lady Jill Biden hosted the presidents of the two major teachers unions, praising their heroic commitment to students.

In February, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky announced at an official White House press briefing, Vaccination of teachers is not a prerequisite for safely reopening schools. Hours later, press secretary Jen Psaki walked that back, claiming that Walensky was speaking only in her personal capacity. A few days later, Psaki sparked ridicule when she stipulated that, in scoring Bidens 100-day reopening goal, schools should be considered open if they offered a single day of in-person instruction each week.

Biden eventually clarified that he expected schools open five days a weekbut rejected proposals to reserve federal aid for schools that actually did so. Ultimately, of course, the Democrats party-line American Recovery Plan included more than $120 billion for schools, with no expectation that schools actually be open (even part-time) to collect these funds. Its nice that Biden has said that hed like schools to open, but his stutter steps and deference to the unions have made him an embodiment of all talk, no action. Grade: D+

The proposed student debt jubilee: Before Biden even took office, progressive activists were pressing him to use executive action to forgive $50,000 per borrower in student debt. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, despite all evidence, termed student debt the time bomb that could throw millions of families over a financial cliff. To his credit, Biden has usefully pushed back (a bit).

In December, Biden observed that the president probably lacks the legal authority to forgive student debt. At a CNN town hall in February, Biden reiterated his opposition to forgiving $50,000, arguing the government shouldnt forgive loans for those who attended "Harvard and Yale and Penn.

Biden has, however, heartily endorsed less ambitious debt forgiveness. In January, he called on Congress to forgive $10,000 for all borrowers (even those who went to Harvard and Yale and Penn). In recent weeks, hes hinted that hes willing to forgive even more, even though blanket debt forgivenessof whatever amountwould disproportionately benefit the affluent, give colleges an excuse to hike prices, and tempt students to borrow even more.

The troubling thing is that this is one place where theres substantial bipartisan agreement on how to protect those who havent completed college or are wrestling with economic hardship, without embracing the kind of regressive, ridiculous giveaways that Warren craves. But Biden has shown no appetite for offering an alternative vision. Grade: C-

The culture war: For all his high-flown campaign talk about bringing America together and uniting our people, Bidens education moves have shown a president seemingly content to stoke the culture wars. On his first day in his office, he issued an executive order suggesting that schools must allow biological males to compete on female sports teams. He abolished the Trump-established 1776 Commission, whichin response to the New York Times 1619 Project and its kinwas charged with enabl[ing] a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States. He issued a Title IX executive order intended to undermine due process in college sexual assault investigations, while promising to restore Obama-era regulations under which the accused sometimes werent even informed of the charges against them (and which prompted hundreds of lawsuits from accused students).

Ol Centrist Joe Biden couldve approached these issues differently. He might have suggested that a presidential order should be preceded by a presidential panel that would help weigh the rights of biological girls, transgender individuals who identify as female, and issues of fairness and safety. (Recall that this is how George W. Bush effectively handled the contentious stem cell question.) Biden mightve nodded to the value of a reconfigured 1776 Commission and moved to retool it, or else quietly retired the effort in a less ostentatious manner. He mightve acknowledged that the current Title IX framework was adopted via a formal rulemaking process and that, whatever his concerns about it, hes sensitive to the importance of due process and believes theres value in moving deliberately.

Instead, throughout the past 100 days, Bidens administration has seemed eager to spark hot-button culture clashes in education. Now, the administration is revising the rules regarding the broadly popular American History and Civics Education program so as to prioritize grantees who embrace the woke agendaname-checking materials like the New York Timess historically challenged 1619 Project and the precepts of anti-racist darling Ibram X. Kendi.

Candidate Biden promised to lower the temperature of our culture wars and bridge some of our bitter divides. In education, early signs are that his administration has something very different in store. Grade: D-

Spending: Before Biden took office, Congress had already earmarked nearly $70 billion in emergency COVID aid to K-12 schools. As of February 2021, most of that money still hadnt been spent. (As the Wall Street Journal editorial board drily noted, Its hard to spend money when schools arent open for classroom instruction since unions have resisted returning to work in much of the country.)

But Biden doubled down in his American Rescue Plan, providing $130 billion more in additional K-12 aid. For reference, thats double what the federal government typically spends a year on K-12 schooling. Meanwhile, states are already so swamped with relief money that it may be years before Bidens bailout is fully spent. The Congressional Budget Office, for instance, estimates that nearly half of Bidens emergency COVID K-12 aid will be spent between 2024 and 2028. On top of that, Bidens proposed budget calls for a massive 41 percent increase in federal K-12 aid.

Theres a case to be made that schools needed some additional dollars (though its easier to make the case that families should receive these education fundsespecially in all those locales where schools are open only part time). But its tough to justify this decision to helicopter tens of billions into even the most inert of public school systems. Grade: D

All in all, surveying Bidens first 100 days, hes earned a gentlemans D. The best one can probably say is, remembering when it looked during parts of 2019 and 2020 like Warren and then Bernie Sanders might claim the Democratic nomination: Things could always be worse.

Frederick M. Hess is the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

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Grading Biden's First 100 Days on Education - The Dispatch